


In the Wreckage

by roseofaries



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: After Doomsday, And yet, Angst, But he's trying, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Dynamics, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Wilbur Soot, Hurt/Comfort, Mentioned Ranboo (Video Blogging RPF), Mentioned Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Mentioned TommyInnit (Video Blogging RPF), Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Phil Watson Tries (Video Blogging RPF), Pre-Resurrection, Resurrection, Sad Ending, Sad Parental Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Sad Wilbur Soot, Wilbur Soot Angst, Wilbur Soot Needs a Hug, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings, c!phil is an awful father, friend, here i am adding to the angst, i always complain that there's no fluff in this fandom, kind of, no beta we die like Tubbo at the festival, wilbur wants to make up for his past mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-15 21:47:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29690415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseofaries/pseuds/roseofaries
Summary: After Doomsday, Phil finds Ghostbur crying by the wreckage of L'manberg. Ghostbur decides that maybe Alivebur had the right idea when he asked Phil to kill him.Or: Wilbur asks Phil to resurrect him after L'manberg blows.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Phil Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 50





	In the Wreckage

**Author's Note:**

> I told myself I wasn't going to write Minecraft fanfiction, but here we are I guess. 
> 
> Ghostbur is probably a little ooc, but you know, I tried.

Ghostbur doesn’t know why he’s crying. He doesn’t know much of anything, these days. Nothing that matters, anyway. Even when he does remember something important, it’s just flashes of pain he can’t bear the weight of. Nothing ever stays. 

He’s definitely feeling something right now, he thinks, sitting with his legs dangling off the edge of a crater where L’manberg used to be. He can remember most of what happened to make the new, deeper crater, and it’s half the reason he’s weeping. The tears burn tracks down his face but he can’t even bring himself to wipe them away. He’s clutching blue to his chest like a lifeline, gasping with every breath. He can’t quite remember exactly what happened, but he knows that Friend is gone now, and that feels awful. His grief is uncontainable, and everyone has been giving him distance since the explosions stopped. Even more distance than usual.

He knows that seeing him hurts them, but he wishes they would stay. He could really use a hug. 

He’s broken out of his miserable reverie by the voice of the only person he doesn’t want to see right now. 

“Hey Wilbur,” Philza says. Ghostbur flinches at his voice, and he can hear his father sigh behind him. He finally gathers himself enough to scrub the tears from his face as he turns to face Phil, putting on a smile even though he knows that everyone near the crater probably heard his sobs. 

“Phil, hi,” he sniffs. He watches warily as Phil moves to take a seat next to him. 

“Hey Will. I just wanted to see how you were holding up after… you know.” He makes a vague gesture at the wreckage of the once-great nation that lays under their dangling feet. 

“I’m fine,” Ghostbur lies with a smile that he knows doesn’t reach his eyes. Phil gives him a doubtful look full of fatherly concern that Ghostbur doesn’t think he deserves and sighs again, but he doesn’t pry. “Thought you’d have left by now, being a war criminal and all,” he adds. Phil laughs, but it’s mostly humorless. 

“I thought so too, but I wanted to check on Ranboo.”

“Ranboo?”

“Yeah. Something was off about the kid when he came to get that book of his during the battle-” That was a generous word for the massacre that Phil and Technoblade had orchestrated, thought Ghostbur- ”and now he’s gone and disappeared. It makes me nervous,” Phil says. 

“That’s nice! What’s your plan after that?” Ghostbur says. He’s still clutching blue to his chest, but his grip is loosening. His tone is chipper again, but the sadness is not gone from him. 

“Well, Techno’s got a house up to the North, as you know. I was thinking I could invite Ranboo up there to live with us, if he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.” Phil’s smiling at the idea, and so Ghostbur does too, but he feels a twinge of hurt at the words. He knows that Phil can’t help but adopt all the stray kids he comes across, but sometimes he wishes that Phil still cared enough about him to worry like that. It’s like he can’t even look Ghostbur in the eyes anymore.

“What about you?” Phil asks, “I thought you’d have been hanging around someone else by now. Instead I find you here crying. What’s wrong?”

The smile slips off Ghostbur’s face. “I was just thinking about all that chaos. You hurt a lot of people, Phil. Why would you do that?” Phil stiffens and looks away. 

“I had to.”

“Did you?” his tone is harsh, completely out of character for the happy-go-lucky ghost. Phil takes the challenging question in stride. 

“Yes! This place haunts me, Wilbur! It torments me day and night! That fucking government put me in a glorified bird cage and made me watch the attempted execution of my own fucking son! That country made you-” he chokes on his words, suddenly quiet, “It drove you to insanity. It made me kill you.” 

Ghostbur takes a breath and decides that he’s too upset right now to be softened by his father’s grief. 

“Did it make you kill Friend, too?”

“What?” Phil looks at Ghostbur, confused. 

“Friend was in your house. You knew he was in your house, and you blew it all up anyway! You killed my only friend!” Ghostbur is shouting now, his form is flickering as he glares at Phil. The tears have started again but he doesn’t feel the pain. Phil’s face is stricken with a mixture of grief, horror, and guilt, but Ghostbur doesn’t care. “Why would you do that to me!?”

“Wilbur, you have plenty of friends-”

“No, Phil! I have no one! I-” he chokes on a sob, but continues anyway, “No one ever wants me around! They look at me like it hurts them, they stay as far away as possible, they push me away every time. You push me away, too.” He’s crying uncontrollably now, and he scrubs his face angrily. 

“Wilbur-” Phil cuts himself off when Ghostbur faceplants into his shoulder. He tenses for a moment before cradling the back of his son’s head as he sobs. Ghostbur is clutching the back of his shirt under his wings so tightly that he absently worries the material may tear. He decides it wouldn’t matter if it did. He pulls Ghostbur closer to him and pushes a comforting hand into his hair. If he tries hard enough, he can almost pretend that he’s Wilbur again, alive and warm still. “I’m sorry,” he says, but even as he says it, he knows it isn’t enough. Nothing will ever be enough to make up for what he’s done to the boy in his arms. 

Ghostbur doesn’t respond for a long while, and Phil doesn’t blame him. When he finally speaks, it’s the thing Phil’s least expecting to hear. 

“I want you to resurrect me, Phil.”

“What?” Phil pushes Ghostbur away from him to look him in the eyes. There’s a damp spot left on his shoulder where his son’s head had been resting. 

“I don’t think I’m what everybody here needs anymore. Maybe I never was. I tried to make everyone happy, but I’m useless without the memories of everything I did when I was alive. How am I supposed to make amends for something I can’t remember doing? How am I supposed to help when I can’t even remember things that people tell me?” Ghostbur drags his hands through his hair and glances at the blue that now lays discarded on the ground. Something in his face changes, and he pushes it off the edge, down into the crater that Phil knows he will someday regret making. It’s the most like the real Wilbur he’s ever seen the ghost, Phil thinks. “I want to tell Tommy and Tubbo and Fundy and everyone who I ever hurt that I’m sorry, and I want to know myself enough to know that I believe it.”

“It’ll be like dying all over again, you know” Phil warns, “You might not even exist anymore at all.” Ghostbur only looks off to the side, down into the abyss of wreckage. He looks tired.

“I don’t think that matters much to me anymore. I don’t think I want to be here any longer anyway.” Phil feels his heart shatter. He’s failed to protect his son once again. Wilbur has been drained by the world again, and again he did nothing to stop it. 

Phil knows in his heart that it will be him who is his son's executioner for the second time, and as he leaves Ghostbur to sit by the wreckage alone, he weeps.


End file.
